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For Immediate Release
January, 10 2021, 11:00pm EDT
Contact:
Lindsay Meiman
(347) 460-9082
lindsay@350action.org
350 Action on NYC Mayoral Candidate Scott Stringer Climate Platform
Yesterday, New York City Comptroller and Mayoral candidate Scott Stringer released his climate platform, paving the way for transformative climate action.
New York, NY
Yesterday, New York City Comptroller and Mayoral candidate Scott Stringer released his climate platform, paving the way for transformative climate action.
In response, Thanu Yakupitiyage, 350.org US Communications Director, said:
"From phasing out toxic fossil fuels and prioritizing environmental justice, to creating tens of thousands of family-sustaining union jobs through a Green New Deal for New York City, Scott Stringer's climate platform sets the new bar for climate ambition in the U.S. Any serious candidate will have to contend with a powerful climate movement, and Stringer is demonstrating from the jump that he's with people, not polluters. If every municipality in the U.S. acted on this level of ambition, we would reach far beyond the commitments of the Paris Agreement. More than eight years after Superstorm Sandy, plans like this will help us leap toward climate safe New York City as a beacon for real climate leadership."
350 Action is the independent political action arm of the non-profit, non-partisan climate justice group 350.org.
LATEST NEWS
Trump EPA Risks Health of Millions With Giveaway to Corporate Polluters That Use Cancer-Causing Gas
"Walking back key regulations for ethylene oxide sterilizer facilities is essentially giving a highly polluting industry a get-out-of-jail-free card," said one campaigner.
Mar 13, 2026
While US Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin on Friday presented a proposed policy change as a demonstration of the Trump administration's commitment to "ensuring lifesaving medical devices remain available," public health advocates warned that relaxing rules on emissions of the cancer-causing gas ethylene oxide puts millions of Americans at risk.
As The New York Times explained: "The move revived a long-running debate about the paradoxical effects of ethylene oxide on public health. While it plays a crucial role in sterilizing lifesaving medical devices like pacemakers and syringes, long-term exposure can cause leukemia and other types of cancer among people who work in or live near medical sterilization facilities."
The EPA proposal would amend the Biden administration's 2024 National Emissions Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants for facilities that use ethylene oxide, which the agency estimated would have eliminated over 90% of dangerous pollution from the gas. The previous policy was cheered by organizations including Earthjustice, which sounded the alarm on Friday.
"The 2024 standards would have delivered enormous public health benefits. EPA knows that ethylene oxide is carcinogenic and determined that sterilizers can install effective and affordable pollution controls," said Earthjustice senior attorney Deena Tumeh. "EPA has no basis to repeal this well-supported rule. By rolling back the rule, the Trump EPA is bending the knee to the sterilizer industry at the expense of millions of people's health."
Darya Minovi, a senior analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists' (UCS) Center for Science and Democracy, similarly stressed that "this dangerous decision puts people across the United States and in Puerto Rico at a higher risk of breathing dangerous fumes known to cause respiratory irritation, nausea, blurred vision, headaches, and various cancers. Children are especially vulnerable to the cancer-causing harms of ethylene oxide exposure."
As Minovi detailed:
According to UCS analysis, nearly 14 million people in the United States live within five miles of at least one commercial sterilization facility, and more than 10,000 schools and childcare facilities fall within those areas. These communities are disproportionately made up of people of color or those who do not speak English as a first language...
This decision is a reckless and self-serving handout to big industry, which asked for this rule to be rolled back. This process sidestepped community input from the start and is an affront to communities that have unknowingly lived with ethylene oxide exposure for decades. These actions show, yet again, that this administration has little to no regard for the health and welfare of working people or any interest in protecting children from exposure to toxic chemicals.
Minovi declared that "ethylene oxide emissions controls need to be strengthened—not dismantled," an argument echoed by Jane Williams, executive director of California Communities Against Toxics and chair of the Sierra Club National Clean Air Team.
"Walking back key regulations for ethylene oxide sterilizer facilities is essentially giving a highly polluting industry a get-out-of-jail-free card. Sterilizers are some of the largest, most toxic chemical manufacturing facilities in the country,” said Williams. "Rather than regressing on key protections, these facilities need even more controls in place to ensure the safety of workers and nearby communities."
People who live near sterilizer facilities also spoke out against the proposed rule, which now faces a 45-day public comment period.
"We understand that industry applied heavy pressure to weaken the previously finalized rule. We also understand that industry remains more concerned with their profits than the lives of those who live near sterilizer facilities, like my community in Laredo," said Tricia Cortez, executive director of Rio Grande International Study Center in Texas.
"Sterilizer facilities like Midwest must be held accountable for their dangerous, cancer-causing emissions," she said. "We need an EPA that works to protect us, the people, not financial interests and corporations that continue to cause so much harm to so many."
Victor Alvarado, founder and coordinator for Comité Diálogo Ambiental, said that "I remember the EPA informing us that Steri-Tech's ethylene oxide emissions in my hometown of Salinas, Puerto Rico, were so high that we had one of the highest rates of toxic air cancer risk in the United States... Eliminating the new protections against ethylene oxide emissions is unjust."
The EPA proposal comes after President Donald Trump in July signed a series of proclamations easing pollution rules for over 100 facilities focused on energy, chemical manufacturing, iron ore processing, and sterile medical equipment. His "regulatory relief," as the Republican called it, applied to dozens of sterilization plants.
The Southern Environmental Law Center and Natural Resources Defense Council responded by filing a federal lawsuit on behalf of CleanAIRE NC, Sustainable Newton, Savannah Riverkeeper, and Virginia Interfaith Power & Light.
"We always knew the presidential exemptions issued last year were part a broader plan to put the interests of corporate polluters above the health and well-being of American families," Sustainable Newton president Maurice Carter said Friday. "But we won't stop fighting to protect our community by demanding commonsense, reasonable measures that even the EPA has said would reduce harmful emissions by 90% and lower cancer risks by 92%."
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Warnings of Iran Invasion Grow as US to Send Up to 5,000 Marines, Sailors to Middle East
"Bringing this war to an end," said one former US intelligence analyst, "requires recognizing it can still get much, much worse."
Mar 13, 2026
In what has been described as a potential "major escalation" of the Trump administration's war with Iran, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has reportedly approved a request from US Central Command to move more warships and thousands of Marines to the Middle East following Iran's attacks on vessels in the Strait of Hormuz.
Citing three US officials, The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that the US was sending "an element of an amphibious ready group and attached Marine expeditionary unit, typically consisting of several warships and 5,000 Marines and sailors."
According to the Journal, the Japan-based USS Tripoli and its attached Marines are already headed to the Middle East.
While the Journal did not explicitly report that the operation was tied to the volatile situation in the Strait of Hormuz, it noted that "the move comes as Iran’s attacks on the strait have paralyzed traffic through the strategic waterway, disrupting the global economy, driving up gas prices and posing a major military and political challenge for President [Donald] Trump."
In his first address on Thursday, delivered by a news anchor on Iranian state TV, the country's new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, said that “the lever of blocking the Strait of Hormuz must definitely be used" to heighten economic pressure on the US.
Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has declared that "not a liter of oil" shall pass through the strait, and vowed to attack any ship linked to the US and Israel that may attempt to make the journey.
Iran has reportedly attacked at least six commercial ships in the area since Wednesday, including one marked with a Thai flag that still has three crew members missing. US intelligence sources have also accused Iran of laying mines in the Strait, which Iran has neither confirmed nor denied.
The blockage of the strait, through which about one-fifth of global oil shipments pass each year, has sent the global market into chaos. Prices of Brent crude have surged from under $70 less than a month ago to more than $100 per barrel on the global market, and US gas prices have leaped to $3.63 per gallon on average, up from $2.94 a month ago.
Prices have continued to climb even after the International Energy Agency (IEA) announced its largest-ever coordinated release of oil from nations' strategic reserves on Wednesday to combat what it called "the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market."
Shashank Joshi, the defense editor at The Economist and a visiting fellow at the Department of War Studies at King's College London, said that a deployment of such a large Marine force seems to be "a key indicator of a potential ground operation" in Iran.
Trump said earlier this week that he was "nowhere near" sending troops into Iran even as it ramped up threats to block the strait. But privately, he has reportedly been mulling plans to put "boots on the ground" within Iranian territory to accomplish a number of objectives, though officials have characterized them as limited special-operations missions.
Administration officials have reportedly suggested a commando raid on Iran's nuclear sites to confiscate or sabotage its supply of uranium, according to Axios. They've also considered a plan to occupy Kharg Island, which sits 15 miles off Iran's coast and handles about 90% of its oil exports, serving as an economic "lifeline" for the battered nation.
But Trump has also said that if Iran blocks the strait, "the US Navy and its partners will escort tankers through the strait, if needed." Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. Dan Caine, has said the Pentagon is looking at "a range of options" to do this.
In an analysis published Tuesday by Zeteo, Harrison Mann, a former US Army major and executive officer of the Defense Intelligence Agency’s Middle East/Africa Regional Center, suggested that the US may pursue an ambitious plan to "clear Iran’s coastline around the strait" to get tankers moving again.
Mann, who worked under the Biden administration but resigned in protest of its support for the genocide in Gaza, said this plan would require "an indefinite occupation–otherwise missile trucks could just get in position after US forces leave." Doing this, he added, would require "a full-fledged invasion, possibly beyond even the 10,000 or so rapid-response forces at Trump’s disposal."
"All of these ground operations risk high casualties while failing to accomplish their missions," Mann said. "That’s a feature, not a bug. Even if one of these operations met its objectives, troops in peril behind enemy lines demand resupply, evacuation, and revenge, which puts more troops in peril behind enemy lines, and so on."
The movement of more troops comes as the US public expresses strong disapproval of Trump's war with Iran. In a Quinnipiac poll published this week, 53% of registered voters said they opposed US military action against Iran, while just 40% approved.
About 74% said they feared that the war would cause oil and gas prices to rise, and 71% feared that the war would last "months" or longer.
Trump's former chief strategist, Steve Bannon, who remains one of his top allies in media, said on his War Room podcast that deploying such a large military force "sends a signal to Iran, but it also sends a signal to the American people: This is a major escalation."
Mann said that putting troops on the ground in Iran will only "ensure that Trump can't back out easily, which is exactly what [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu, [US Sen.] Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and their ilk need to fracture Iran.
"Bringing this war to an end," Mann said, "requires recognizing it can still get much, much worse, refusing to fall for the promise of 'small special ops raids,' and calling these courses of action what they are: a prelude to forever war."
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With War on Iran, Trump Is 'Flooring the Gas Pedal as He Drives US Economy Over a Cliff'
"If high costs weren’t already bad enough, Donald Trump’s unnecessary war in Iran has sent gas prices through the roof," said one House Democrat.
Mar 13, 2026
Data released Friday showed that US consumer sentiment hit a new low for 2026 and the American economy expanded by just 0.7% in the fourth quarter of last year, indicators that experts said are only going to get worse due to the cascading impacts of President Donald Trump's deadly, illegal, and expensive war on Iran.
“President Trump is flooring the gas pedal as he drives our economy over a cliff," Alex Jacquez, chief of policy and advocacy at the Groundwork Collaborative, said in response to the new data, some of which was collected before the US and Israel launched their assault on Iran, sparking a regional conflict, sending oil prices surging, and destabilizing the global economy.
"As bad as this week’s data is," Jacquez added, "it understates reality for exhausted consumers who have been hit with even more price hikes caused by the president’s intentional turmoil in the weeks since this data was collected. Instead of working to bring down ever-increasing prices at the pump, the grocery store, and the doctor’s office, the president is betraying working families as his illegal war with Iran stokes inflation."
Figures released Friday by the US Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) showed that real gross domestic product increased at half the rate predicted by previous government estimates.
"Real GDP was revised down 0.7 percentage points from the advance estimate [of 1.4%], reflecting downward revisions to exports, consumer spending, government spending, and investment," the BEA said in a news release.
NBC News noted that "economists had expected the revision to go the other way—and show stronger growth."
The BEA also published data showing that the personal consumption expenditures price index, a key inflation reading, rose at an annualized rate of 2.8% in January.
“Families across the United States are struggling to make ends meet in Donald Trump’s economy," Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.), the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, said in a statement. "If high costs weren’t already bad enough, Donald Trump’s unnecessary war in Iran has sent gas prices through the roof."
A Harris Poll opinion survey conducted for The Guardian and released Friday found that more than 70% of US voters believe Trump's tariff regime has driven up their costs.
"In the short run, the economic impact of a sustained loss of Gulf oil could be very ugly."
Consumer sentiment, meanwhile, continued its steady decline in March, falling about 2% compared to last month, according to the University of Michigan's Surveys of Consumers. Roughly half of the interviews conducted for the consumer sentiment report were completed before the US and Israel began attacking Iran on February 28.
Joanne Hsu, director of the Surveys of Consumers, noted that "interviews completed prior to the military action in Iran showed an improvement in sentiment from last month, but lower readings seen during the nine days thereafter completely erased those initial gains."
"Gasoline prices have exerted the most immediate impact felt by consumers, though the magnitude of passthrough to other prices remains highly uncertain," Hsu noted. "A broad swath of consumers across incomes, age, and political affiliation all reported declines in expectations for their personal finances, down 7.5% nationally."
"Interviews completed after February 28 exhibited higher inflation expectations than those completed before that date," Hsu added.
The first six days of Trump's war on Iran cost US taxpayers over $11 billion, and the price tag is set to rise exponentially as the administration deploys thousands of additional troops to the Middle East and continues aggressively bombing Iran, which has retaliated in part by closing the Strait of Hormuz—choking off the flow of oil through the critical trade route and sending prices surging.
The Trump administration has sought to downplay skyrocketing oil prices even as it takes emergency action in an attempt to bring them down. The International Energy Agency said Thursday that the US-Israeli assault on Iran sparked "the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market."
Economist Paul Krugman warned Friday that "oil prices could easily go much higher," noting, "The US and other major economies are a lot less oil-dependent than they were in the 1970s, and even at $100 a barrel oil prices are not high enough to provoke a major crisis."
"In the short run, the economic impact of a sustained loss of Gulf oil could be very ugly," Krugman wrote. "I’ve seen some alarmists warn that a long war in the Gulf could lead to oil at $150 a barrel. That looks low to me."
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